Albert Keck of Hadley's Date Gardens in Thermal hopes that a comprehensive reform will be enacted as his business depends on immigrant labor, particularly from Mexico and Central America. / Omar Ornelas/ The Desert Sun

“Farmworkers have a work ethic that’s very strong. They’re very disciplined. They’re punctual. They’re reliable,” Keck said. “They pursue work in many ways, not just as a livelihood, but as a sense of pride.”

Keck said he doesn’t want to be labeled as the spokesman for all farmers in the Coachella Valley, but he does want people to know that he values the immigrant labor force.

“They don’t fear some of the type of jobs that, quite honestly, we don’t raise kids in this country to do. We raise kids in this country to go to college,” he said. “The other misconception is that they take jobs away from other people, but they don’t. The jobs they’re doing most people don’t aspire to do.”

He looks up at one of his workers, entangled with the fronds of a date palm. He ties each date bunch to a frond so that the two stay together, a process known as “tie-down.” This is done to balance and support the bunch so it doesn’t give out.

“Marcos is one of my old-timers,” he said.

While Keck said all of his employees are documented, farming has one of the highest concentrations of undocumented immigrants in the Inland Empire, according to a recent report by the University of Southern California. About 13 percent of undocumented immigrants in the region work in farming, fishing or forestry.

Keck said some farmers get sucked into what he calls a “black market economy,” in which farmworkers experience different forms of labor abuse at the hands of their supervisors, whether it be long hours, lack of overtime pay or sexual harassment.

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In a 2006 survey of more than 500 seasonal and yearlong farmworkers throughout Riverside County, 90 percent of farmworkers said they weren’t paid for sick days and 60 percent said they weren’t aware of their labor or civil rights as California employees.

“My guess is that most of the agricultural employers established as legitimate companies are probably very concerned and mindful of all regulations. And so the abuses come more in situations where there’s an employer who’s working on a strictly cash basis and where insurances aren’t provided. Regulations aren’t respected. Payrolls are not formalized,” he said.

But that behavior is not indicative of most agricultural employers, Keck said. The few rogue farmers in the industry “won’t be in business for long” if they’re abusive, he said.

“We value our employees. We need our employees to like to work for us. We don’t like turnover,” he said. “We don’t like to lose employees, and we need them to be willing and happy working for us.”

Rayne Pegg, manager at the California Farm Bureau Federation, said that many people don’t understand the agricultural industry and often misconstrue farmer-farmworker relationships. While instances of sexual abuse and mistreatment on the fields need to be reported, most farmers care about their employees, she said.

“I know farmers that have had the same employees for several decades and really do care about their workers and want their workers to be protected and don’t want them to have their families torn apart and sent back to Mexico,” she said.

Without immigration reform, many farmers in California will continue to lose a large number of their employees.

In a study by the California Farm Bureau Federation, 61 percent of 800 farmers said they are experiencing a shortage of workers. The California Farm Bureau Federation, like most farming organizations in the state, supports comprehensive immigration reform.

The Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill includes a proposal by Democratic California Sen. Dianne Feinstein to legalize up to 1.1 million undocumented farmworkers.

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Under the proposal, undocumented workers would work a minimum of 100 days or 575 hours over two years to be given an agricultural or “blue” card.

Blue card holders would then work at least 500 days over five years or 450 days over three years to get permanent residency or a “green” card.

Green card holders can live and work in the U.S. permanently, but can’t vote or hold certain government jobs.

Feinstein estimates that between 300,000 and 400,000 farmworkers qualify for the proposed legislation.

“We establish a new Blue Card program to provide legal status and a pathway to citizenship for current undocumented farmworkers inside the country so they can continue the vital work of growing and harvesting food,” Feinstein said in a statement.

Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers, the largest farmworker union in the nation, thanked Feinstein for her efforts to map out a guest worker program.

Though he’s a Republican, Keck commends Feinstein for the blue card provision. He said undocumented farmworkers need to be legalized so they’re no longer exposed to the abuses that might happen at farms that operate outside the law.

“Everyone that I know … they’re all concerned about having good, motivated employees. And that’s not done through fear or abuse. It’s done through the way you work with them and the way you treat them,” he said. “They should be able to be here legitimately without fear. We need a functional system.”